On 19-04-1972, he married Anneliese Viktoria Wenger (born 1925), a homeopath and mother of three already grown children from a first marriage divorced in 1955 (including Eckehard and Ekkehard Walther, who was with her in Rome) In 1962, after hearing about Kapplers fate from a patient for the first time, she wrote to him and sent food parcels. . While serving his sentence in prison, Herbert Kappler divorced his first wife and married his nurse, Anneliese, in 1972. He was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in the Gaeta military prison. In 1937, Kappler graduated from the Fhrerschule der Sicherheitspolizei (Leadership School of the Security Police) in Berlin as a Kriminalkommissar (criminal commissioner). What happened to Herbert Kappler? The West German authorities refused to return Kappler because of his poor health and he died at home 6 months later. Walter Ciszek as a fellow political prisoner in the Gulag complex located 300km above the Arctic Circle and known as Norillag. He was head of German police and security services (Sicherheitspolizei and SD) in Rome during the Second World War and was responsible for the Ardeatine massacre. Vittorio Lattanzio resigned from his position as Minister of Defense in the aftermath of the escape. Despite this O'Flaherty assisted in helping members of Kapplers family in escaping from Rome at Liberation. On a visit in August 1977, Kapplers wife carried him out in a large suitcase (Kappler weighed about (104 pounds at the time) and escaped to West Germany. Kappler and his first wife divorced while he was serving his sentence. Kappler was posted to Rome as head of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) and throughout the war years he cooperated closely with the Fascist police. Kappler was arrested by British authorities in 1945, turned over to the Italian government in 1947, and tried the following year by an Italian military tribunal. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. Herbert Kappler (23 September 1907 - 9 February 1978) was a key German SS functionary and war criminal during the Nazi era. The Italians unsuccessfully demanded that Kappler be returned, but the West Germany authorities refused to extradite him and did not prosecute Kappler for any further war crimes, reportedly due to his ill health. Since he was at this time considered only a general SS member, not assigned to permanent full-time duties, Kappler was not exempt from the draft and he became a Schtze in the Wehrmacht on June 11, 1935. Kappler performed active training duty over three separate periods from June 1935 to September 1936, with final release on September 27, 1936 with the rank of Feldwebel der Reserve. Download our mobile app for on-the-go access to the Jewish Virtual Library, 1998 - 2023 American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise. Anyone can read what you share. During this action, he demanded 110 pounds of gold from the Jewish community in Rome, which he later claimed was an attempt to prevent the round-up and the deportations. In mid 1941, now an SS-Major, Kappler was selected as a liaison officer to the government of Benito Mussolini as well as a security advisor to the Fascist police. The film was filled with the Catholic faith of his wife, Maria von Trapp, and their family. By early 1944, Kappler was the highest representative of the Reich Security Main Office in Rome and answered directly to both the military governorship, under Luftwaffe General Kurt Maelzer, as well as the SS chain of command under the Higher SS and Police Leader of Italy, SS-Obergruppenfhrer Karl Wolff. [18], In the 1973 feature film Massacre in Rome, which deals with the Ardeatine massacre, Kappler was portrayed by actor Richard Burton. In 1937, Kappler (now an SS-Oberscharfhrer (staff sergeant)) was sent by his Gestapo superiors to attend the Fhrerschule der Sicherheitspolzei (Leadership School of the Security Police) in Berlin from which he graduated in the summer of 1937 as a certified Kriminalkommissar (Criminal Commissioner). [citation needed] In 1938, during the Anschluss, he supervised the mass deportations of Austrian Jews as part of the Holocaust in Austria.[3]. Kappler's second in command in Rome, SS-Captain Erich Priebke, managed to escape to Argentina and was not extradited to Italy to face trial over his own role in the Ardeatine Caves Massacre until 1996. During this time one of his only regular visitors was none other that The Monsignor himself who visited him every month for 10 years as well as writing to him regularly and subsequently baptizedhim to the Catholic faith. Herbert Kappler became Hitler's man in Rome after the arrest of Benito Mussolini. She smuggled him into West Germany by car. SOLTAU, West Germany, Feb. 10 (UPI) The family of Herbert Kappler, a former Nazi SS colonel, withheld plans for his funeral today to prevent pro- and antiNazi demonstrators from appearing at the rites. On a prison visit in August 1977, Kappler's wife carried him out in a large suitcase (Kappler weighed less than 105 pounds at the time) and escaped to West Germany, assisted by apparently unwitting carabinieri. On a visit in August 1977, Kappler's wife carried him out in a large suitcase (Kappler weighed about 47kg (104lb) at the time) and escaped to West Germany, assisted by apparently unwitting carabinieri. Statis. Since the marriage had remained childless, the couple adopted a boy from a Lebensborn home. At his trial in 1948, after six hours, the head of the five-judge military tribunal gravely pronounced the stiffest sentence he could give under Italian law: "life imprisonment, including four years solitary confinement, for repeated and premeditated murder.. Mr. Kappler's wife, Anneliese, who said she had lowered him with ropes from the third floor of the hospital, explained that it had been her greatest wish that her husband, whom she called a Christbike figure, should not die in captivity. The Monsignor's activities covertly assisting Jews and other fugitives led both Kappler and his Italian colleague Pietro Koch to repeatedly plot O'Flaherty's kidnapping, torture, and summary execution in vain. Mr. Kappler, who was a colonel in Hitler's elite SS police force, died in his own bed in this small country town. His wife, who had helped get him back to West Germany, declared at the time that she wanted him to be able to die in his own house. In 1947, Kappler was tried by an Italian military tribunal and sentenced to life imprisonment in the military prison of Gaeta. In 1975, he was diagnosed with cancer. Kappler came into direct conflict with the Vatican, as the Germans had strong suspicions that it was harboring Allied fugitives and escaped prisoners, even though the Vatican under Pope Pius XII was technically neutral. Boards are the best place to save images and video clips. Without hesitation, O'Flaherty took up Kappler's invitation and in prison the two men chatted over coffee. Kappler was also portrayed by Christopher Plummer in the 1983 TV movie The Scarlet and The Black, which detailed Kappler's first meeting with Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty. Waiting to solve 5. Military Wiki is a FANDOM Lifestyle Community. Kurtna, however, turned the tables on Kappler by stealing the top secret Sicherheitsdienst codebooks from his office during the chaos that surrounded the Liberation of Rome. In the 1973 feature film Massacre in Rome, which deals with the Ardeatine massacre, Kappler was portrayed by actor Richard Burton. Shahan Russell is one of the authors writing for WAR HISTORY ONLINE. He underwent six months of indoctrination training, and was sworn into the SS on May 8, 1933. By this time Kappler had also converted to Catholicism, partly due to the influence of his war-time opponent, the Vatican diplomat Mgr. Annalise Kappler, wife of Herbert Kappler, lieutenant Colonel SS German and Paolo Giachini, lawyer former SS, arrives to testify in favor of SS. Although most were Allied soldiers, some were Jews. Photos:Kappler -United States War Department, Public domainvia Wikimedia Commons. It was also because the Republic of Ireland was neutral during the war. This website makes use of cookies to ensure that the website works properly. He was described as a model prisoner, interested in music, theology, reading and meditation. During his teenage years Hugh was a talented student and golfer . The date of the Ardeatine massacre, March 24, 1944, became a national day of mourning in Italy, and the killings are still recalled with outrage. iie was 70 years old. She was their only child. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. Kappler was convicted to life imprisonment by an Italian military tribunal after WWII and served life imprisonment in an Italian prison. Herbert Kappler (23 September 1907 9 February 1978) was the head of German police and security services (Oberbefehlshaber des Sicherheitspolizei und SD) in Rome during World War II. Thank you for using this website. He also coordinated the rescue of downed pilots, providing them with food, medicine and safe houses throughout Italy. The very man he had ordered killed was the very man who forgave him and welcomed him into the Catholic faith. Meanwhile, the West German government has denied German press reports that it has secretly reached agreement with the Italian government on a means of ending the Kappler controversy. In 1935, as part of Germany's rearming programs, Kappler was called up to serve in the Wehrmacht. Appeals by both his wife and the West German government for compassionate release were denied by Italian authorities, but did earn him a transfer to a hospital in 1976. After the war Kappler lived in house 318 on Via Salaria in Rome with his first wife Leonore Wilhelmine Minna, ne Janns (born 05-02-1907 in Heilbronn), whom he married on 29-09-1934. In these measures, Kappler came into direct conflict with the Vatican, which was highly suspected of harboring Allied fugitives and escaped prisoners, even though the Vatican under Pope Pius XII was technically neutral. Lieutenant Colonel Herbert Kapplerwas head of The Gestapo in Rome during the occupation. After his sentencing (which upheld his lifetime conviction), Kappler went ahead with the conversion. She lowered him out a fourthfloor window with a mountainclimbing harness, hid him in a box and drove to West Germay. In practice, refusal to obey orders during war is not possible. She declined to give details of the escape, saying these would appear in a mass-circulation magazine this week. Hunted by them, he ended up converting the SS chief in Rome. Yet it was in The Scarlet and the Black that Plummer played his most Catholic role, the Gestapo chief in Rome, Herbert Kappler. As the authorities refused to release him, in 1977, Anneliese carried Kappler out of prison in a large suitcase (he weighed less than one hundred five pounds at the time). To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. Kappler and his first wife divorced while Kappler was serving his sentence, but he was married again to Anneliese Kappler, a nurse who had carried on a lengthy correspondence with Kappler before marrying him in a prison wedding ceremony in 1972. . Both Capponi and Bentivegna had grown up under Benito Mussolini's dictatorship. 2023 Getty Images. [17], Six months after his escape, Kappler died at home in Soltau, on 9 February 1978, aged 70. He rose to the rank of SS- Obersturmbannfhrer and was responsible for the Ardeatine massacre as well as dealing with Vatican City over its neutrality. Kappler and his first wife divorced while he was serving his sentence. Streamline your workflow with our best-in-class digital asset management system. Kappler came into direct conflict with the neutral Vatican under Pope Pius XII, which Kappler correctly believed was harbouring escaped Allied POWs, members of the Italian Resistance, and Jews. In January 1936, he was assigned to duty at the Gestapo main office in Stuttgart. As part of the latter operation, Kappler successfully extorted 50 kilograms of gold (110 lbs.) Kappler was in charge of Jewish roundups for deportations to Auschwitz. Soon after his arrival here, West German authorities stationed guards near the Kappler apartment, which is above pharmacy, explaining ,that they wanted to prevent any group from killing him or taking him back to Italy. Herbert Kappler was born on September 23, 1907, to a middle-class family in Stuttgart in the German Empire. World War II Kappler was born to a middle-class family in Stuttgart in what was still the German Empire. What happened to Herbert Kappler, SS Colonel, after WWII? Giuseppe worked as a salesclerk at an interior decoration store in Rome. From 1939 to 1940, he was briefly deployed to Poland and participated in various Einsatzgruppen actions before serving a further tour as a uniformed Gestapo officer in occupied Belgium where he acted to suppress resistance. David Alvarez and Robert A. Graham, S.J. There was a great sense of letting go." . By this time, Kappler had also converted to Catholicism,[16] due to the influence of his war-time enemy, Mgr. Upon leaving the SA, Kappler was accepted as a prospective candidate into the Schutzstaffel (SS) and appointed to the entry level probation rank of SS-Anwrter. At the same time, he became a stormtrooper in the Sturmabteilung . The priest believed it might be misinterpreted as an attempt to influence his trial judges. Collect, curate and comment on your files. In 1922 OFlaherty was sent to Rome to finish his studies where he was ordained three years later. Because of Kapplers deteriorating condition and his wifes nursing skills, Anneliese Kappler had been allowed almost unlimited access to him after he was transferred to an Italian hospital. In 1947, Kappler was tried by an Italian military tribunal and sentenced to life imprisonment in the military prison of Gaeta. from the Jews of Rome, which Kappler later alleged was an attempt to prevent the deportations.[3][8][9]. He was raised in Killarney where his father was a steward on a golf course where the family lived. Herbert Kappler joined the Nazi Party on 1 August 1931 and joined the SS in 1933. Anyone can read what you share. Kappler's main activities during this period involved suppressing resistance groups, rounding up "enemies of the state", and enforcing anti-Jewish measures, conducting Jewish ghetto raids, and deportations to extermination camps. Organize, control, distribute and measure all of your digital content. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. [citation needed] In 1938, during the Anschluss, he supervised the mass deportations of Austrias Jews to concentration camps. 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